Walking down Faubourg Saint-Honoré and from afar I started seeing bits of this facade. I was pretty stunned when I finally saw the whole thing, and I was clearly not the only one (although most of the others seemed to be Japanese tourists).

I have always had this fascination for architectural alignments: colonnades, footbridges, tunnels. And the area in Paris around the Louvres is great for such photos, except advertising seems to have invaded all those alignments on Rue de Rivoli. Thankfully, the Comédie Française (our national theatre) is having none of that, and I was able to shoot this in front of the entrance last week.

There is something soothing and peaceful about the Cimetière du Montparnasse, and I spent a few hours there last Saturday morning just walking around and trying to capture that softness through a wide open lens. This is one of the most interesting shots (I think).

Bordeaux under a nice sunlight is truly gorgeous, but it can be easy to forget that there’s life beneath these old stones. The city is in the midst of a conflict with the garbage collection union. I’m not taking sides, I don’t even know the exact nature of the conflict, but I wanted to show a less glamorous side to the city with this photo in the middle of the Old Bordeaux. Something tells me this one might not see so many likes on social networks…

I was looking into the side streets on one of Bordeaux’s main arteries when I stumbled upon this scene. I shot by reflex. The guy on the right might have objected, but the guy on top of the ladder didn’t seem to mind. I decided to keep it.

Place Fernand Lafargue in Bordeaux is the remnants of the Apollo. I have no idea what the store was although I assume a record store. Sad to see it so derelict, but the contrast between that and the old stone above is interesting.

I have something of an obsession for this statue just outside the St Lazare train station in Paris. It’s called « L’Heure pour Tous » (Time for Everybody) and I shot it a lot a few years ago, trying to find interesting compositions and integrating the pigeons when I could. With the vertical panorama, I had to fill the foreground, which these two passers-by kindly did for me. Since the statue was refurbished, it’s now golden, which I don’t like as much as when it was black. But I have to say, with a bright color film, it certainly sparkles!

Paris still bears signs of the traumatic events of early January and the upsurge of public support for freedom of expression. The slogan « Je Suis Charlie » can still be seen more or less everywhere, and I wanted to capture that. What I didn’t realize was how bad expired slide film could go. This is color slide film, believe it or not. Most of the shots in that roll were worthless and not worth working on, but this one had something. This is a heavily processed version to bring back contrast, but it retains the weird colour cast. I’ve also produced a B&W version below, but I think I actually prefer the weird purple.

The Pont de Bercy is a very visible landmark in Eastern Paris, since it crosses the Seine along the famous modern building that hosts the Ministry of the Budget. But few people know that under the bridge is a bike track with wonderful columns on the sides…